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Oh come now. I'm not taking anything out on you, and this bickering is getting silly. No need to take things personally. I'm simply asking you to address the previous posts, so we can continue with the discussion. I could, of course, simply copy & paste the Catechism or something, but that wouldn't get us anywhere.ha i showed you my belief. if you can't take that i agree with another man, then don't read it. i'm sorry if you disagree with his view and mine but don't take it out on me.
Hey, maybe you could actually address the points in my post?you're right blocks of text(or scripture) is wrong and we shouldn't follow it.
Well, by continuing to live the life Christ expects you to live. Some people choose to stop doing that, and is so doing make "a shipwreck of their faith", as Peter says.well then the question becomes how do you make sure you are going to heaven?
Well, by continuing to live the life Christ expects you to live. Some people choose to stop doing that, and is so doing make "a shipwreck of their faith", as Peter says.
From what I know of myself and of the scriptures, I know I am saved due to a few reasons, primarily the desire whole heartedly to serve God, to be obediant to Him in all aspects of my life "if you love me obey my comandments," Paul and Peter tell us to test ourselves to make sure that we are still in the faith, how do I do this..................by seeing if I still desire to be obediant in everything, "whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
Hope that helps
Mark
Cool.Any encouragement would be much appreciated.
So you believe that, so long as you are obediant to Christ, then you are sure that heaven is your destination? Can someone explain to me how this is different to the original statement I made?
I mean "saved" as in going to Heaven because you have been accepted by Jesus and you have accepted Him. Again, I don't believe people can become "unsaved".
Everybody goes through "rough" times in their relationship with God. How do you know you are saved during those times and you weren't just kidding yourself when you were "good" with God?
his opinion was a biblical one that i agree with. how are you qualified to tell me it's not my opinion too. yes just because you wrote yours out and i copy and pasted you must be correct. good argument.Hey, maybe you could actually address the points in my post?
Because, you know, I took time writing that. Unlike you. Well, I'm sure it took a good three seconds to copy and paste.
If you actually read and understood my argument, you'd see why the very first lines of McArthur's argument (ie, not your's) didn't apply.
um since God is the giver of our faith to begin with he will be the one to see us through to the end, as it says many times in scripture.Well, by continuing to live the life Christ expects you to live. Some people choose to stop doing that, and is so doing make "a shipwreck of their faith", as Peter says.
I want to encourage you and remind you that our faith is not based on how we feel. Continue reading, studying, and praying. The Lord needs firm believers that will follow Him, even when we don't feel like it or we don't feel His presence. Our faith is not based in those things, but our faith is based in Him. That way in this way the Lord will affirm His presence in your life and you will reap a great reward, trust me. I've been there.How do you know you are saved? Not what do you do to have it shown to you (reading the Bible, praying, because I understand all this) but in those moments when you feel utterly alone and don't feel as if God has accepted me at all, how do I KNOW I'm saved? When my faith is that weak, where can I put my comfort? What logical things can one do to find if they are saved in the days, weeks or months when they don't "feel" it?
Also, how does one know they are a true repentent Christian when he or she grows up in a Christian home? (I'm not bashing this, just a question for my own benefit). I find that when people ask, yes, I believe that I'm in total depravity and Jesus is my salvation if I ask him into my heart. However, I've been told this is truth since I was a baby. So it's something I know just like I know that my birthday is in June, that Abraham Lincoln was a president, etc. It's almost common knowledge in my mind. Does that make it less "true" for me having just known it since I was young?
Obviously, I've been a Christian my entire life and I've been having doubts about my faith lately, not because of some outrageous down fall but because I sometimes feel I dno't believe what I believe for the right reason. And I really don't feel God's presence and haven't for way too long now. I keep looking back at times when I did feel it and wanting that back and wondering if I was just kidding myself into thinking I was a Christian then and really am not. I want to be a Christian in my heart, as I know the things of the Bible to be true, but am I accepted? Do I REALLY believe them or do I just think they are true because of my upbringing?
Any encouragement would be much appreciated.
Oh come now. I'm not taking anything out on you, and this bickering is getting silly. No need to take things personally. I'm simply asking you to address the previous posts, so we can continue with the discussion. I could, of course, simply copy & paste the Catechism or something, but that wouldn't get us anywhere.
Well, one difference is saying "saved " in the past tense. As a Catholic, when someone asks me if I have been "saved," I answer: "I am redeemed by the blood of Christ, I trust in him alone for my salvation, and, as the Bible teaches, I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), knowing that it is God's gift of grace that is working in me."
Paul and Peter tell us to test ourselves to make sure that we are still in the faith, how do I do this..................by seeing if I still desire to be obediant in everything, "whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
Bumping this post since it was never addressed.Phew, for a second there, I thought you were making a Nazi joke about Lutherans and their German heritage...
Anyway, I'm 'receiving' this information from the same passages of Scripture I have consistently quoted. For everyone's benefit, I will post them in full.
Mark 16:16: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Obviously, this verse leaves ambiguity for those that 1. only believe by confession of mouth, and 2. have been baptized but cannot confess their belief.
Again, I'm not suggesting that baptism is necessary for salvation. But those who merely believe have no assurance, for their belief rests upon an invisible act of grace (if you're Lutheran or Reformed) or an invisible act of will (if you're Arminian, Catholic, or Orthodox). But this verse shows that baptism actually adds something to the person; a person who both believes and is baptized can be assured of their salvation?
Why? Let us turn to the other passages.
Romans 6:3-4: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
This is not the 'inward sign of an outward faith' that Baptistic Christians so often talk about. The baptism of which Paul speaks in not an act accomplished by the recipient of baptism, but an act of Christ in the church that renews and transforms the believer.
Look at the actual words, instead of assigning your own meaning to them based on your already-held belief on baptism. Paul writes as through baptism actually does something- baptism is what actually unites us to Christ in his death and resurrection.
I'm not saying that grace alone does not justify us, nor that justification does not occur solely through faith. But the passage clearly speaks of baptism as actually performed the unitive act between the recipient as Christ.
What am I to conclude, then, as a firm believer in sola fide, but that baptism is a visible means by which God exercises his divine grace?
Galatians 3:27-29: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christs, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs according to promise.
This, of course, is not about regeneration. But it is about baptismal adoption. This verse speaks in beautiful prose about how, through baptism, the believer because a child of Abraham through Christ (by being united to Christ as per Rom 6:4, above), and thus a child of God.
Is this not grace? Does this not show that baptism is a means through which God pours out his grace on his children?
Now here's a tricky one:
Acts 2:38-39: And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
Everybody on each side of the divide loves this verse. On the one hand, it seems a sure place to cling onto the doctrine of infant baptism. On the other hand, it also seems to be a great way to show that baptism should come after repentance, and that it, like repentance, is an act of the person in question.
Yet first of all, I don't think the biblical view of repentance paints penitance as an act of a person's will. Rather, it is a (quite natural) passive reaction to the fear and guilt generated by the Law's (or conscience's) conviction in our lives.
Second, nothing in the passage seems to indicate that however we view repentance, we must view baptism in a similar light. Is it inconceivable that one be an act of human will, where the other be an act of God's?
Third, however we view either baptism or repentance, it remains nevertheless the case that baptism is instrumental in the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whether one thinks that the gift of the Holy Spirit is salvation or the gift is the Holy Spirit himself (I've seen both interpretations in serious Bible commentaries); in either case, it certainly teaches that baptism, when combined with repentance, brings the believer into a renewed and transformed state.
1 Peter 3:20-21: ...in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...
Like the passage in Acts 2, this seems like it could go both ways. This is the most express statement that baptism saves us, for it actually says that, but the text goes on to talk about the difference between the removal of dirt from the body vs. the appeal of a good conscience before God.
So really, it comes down to whether this passage speaks of water baptism or not.
I submit, first of all, that there is no other baptism besides water baptism, and that the 'spiritual baptism' of which Baptistic folks sometimes speak is a construction pulled out of the text unknown to the early church.
Of course, John the Baptism spoke of the later baptism of people with the Spirit, but A. nothing in the texts suggest that the Spirit arrives in the person without corresponding physical sign of water and B. Ephesians 4:5 explicitly states that there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism."
Perhaps the Spirit may come upon a person in power to effect salvation in their lives at a time other than their water baptism; but, and this is the important point I'm trying to make, without the water baptism, neither the person in question nor the church as a whole has any visible, objective sign that assures of the work of the Spirit.
Moreover, in order to accept the Baptistic interpretation of 1 Peter, we have to believe that the apostle was reacting against some form of belief in baptismal regeneration; but it is much more reasonable to conclude that he was speaking against other kinds of washing that were merely of a material nature, like the mikvah rituals of the Jewish people or the baptism of John. Peter is not saying the baptism that saves us is merely of the Spirit, but precisely the opposite- he is saying that the water baptism that saves us is not merely of water, but of the Spirit, too.
See above.
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